Lee DeHihns is a member of the firm’s Environmental and Land Development Group. He is also an affiliate member of the firm’s Energy Infrastructure, Climate and Technology Group. He has practiced environmental law since 1974. He concentrates on regulatory matters and defensive litigation matters, including climate matters, corporate audits, compliance program development, debarment, white-collar criminal defense, air quality, hazardous waste, wetlands, and water quantity and quality matters for industrial and municipal clients. Lee works on many complex and high profile matters.

He was chair of the American Bar Association's Section of Environment, Energy and Resources (SEER) 2007-2008 and will be immediate past chair of SEER 2008-2009. Mr. DeHihns was ranked as a leading environmental lawyer in Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business (2006-2009). He is listed in The Best Lawyers in America and Super Lawyers magazine. He is an author on the topics of water quality and quantity, corporate environmental responsibility, citizen suits and climate change. He is a frequent speaker to professional organizations, including the American Bar Association and the State Bar of Georgia. His article Climate and the Courts appeared in the January/February 2008 issue of ELI’s Environmental Forum.

He was successful in getting USEPA to take the unprecedented action of withdrawing its proposed debarment of a Georgia municipality. He also assisted a corporation in negotiating a favorable debarment resolution with USEPA and the Department of Interior in the aftermath of a highly publicized criminal plea for environmental violations. He successfully represented a corporation in defeating class certification in an Alabama federal court case involving allegations of air pollution crossing interstate boundaries. He successfully represented the City (GMA) and County’s (ACCG) representative organizations as amicus parties in federal court in Georgia in one of the most important water quality cases in the country.

Lee joined Alston & Bird in 1990 after serving four years as deputy regional administrator of USEPA Region 4, the agency's senior career position in the Southeast. His career began with USEPA in 1974 in Washington, D.C., where he rose to the position of associate general counsel. Lee received a Senior Executive Service Meritorious Rank Award from President Bush in 1989.